Family Way: A Lunghi Family Novel

The Nation Day festival, the street party the residents of Bath’s Walcot Street hold each year to declare their independence from the rest of Great Britain, forms the backdrop for Lewin’s engaging third novel featuring the Lunghi family of private detectives (after 1999’s Family Planning). Angelo Lunghi must navigate the noisy crowds on his way to meet a new client. Angelo’s mother, Mama, hopes her single 28-year-old daughter, Rosetta, has met a man while serving on the party’s organizing committee. Mama worries also about the love life of her other unmarried child, Salvatore. Meanwhile, Angelo’s teenage daughter, Marie, sets out for a romantic rendezvous. When a body, somehow connected to a new neighbor, Azaria Daniels, is found during the festivities, the Lunghi family’s investigative instincts kick in. Readers will hope they won’t have to wait 12 years for the next book in this gentle cozy series. (Dec.)